Archive for October, 2008

One of my favorite issues of Shots Magazine each year is their PORTFOLIO ISSUE, where I have been introduced to the work of so many artists. Shots has been the place for first publication of countless artists I know!

“An established independent photography journal in its 22nd year of publication, Shots Magazine reaches an international audience of photographers, collectors, galleries, museums, educators and other fine art photography enthusiasts.”

Shai Kremer advised me of a recent sale to The Metropolitan, and sent me this link from the museum’s on-line image database featuring his image. Curator Mia Fineman has included the image in this interesting exhibition REALITY CHECK.

Exhibition Location: Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography

More than any other type of picture, photographs seem to have a direct and natural connection to visible reality. Reality Check: Truth and Illusion in Contemporary Photography surveys the ways in which artists exploit illusionism in photography to blur the distinction between what is real and what is not. Among the works featured are photographs of staged scenarios and constructed environments that appear to be real, as well as real scenes or landscapes that appear strangely artificial. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from November 4, 2008, through March 22, 2009, Reality Check is the third installation in the Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography, the Museum’s new gallery for contemporary photographs.

In recent years, artists and viewers alike have become increasingly aware of photography’s potential for distortion and ambiguity. Reality Check presents 30 works from the Museum’s permanent collection that tread on the fault lines between reality and artifice. With the rise of postmodernism in the 1970s, artists began to turn the assumed truthfulness of photography against itself. Taking advantage of the camera’s capacity to make scale models appear to be life-size, David Levinthal staged convincing war scenes using plastic toy soldiers, while James Casebere created haunting images of deserted interiors by photographing tabletop models of white-washed spaces, fabricated in his studio.

Set-up photography has become a major current in contemporary art, as seen in subtle and mesmerizing pictures of meticulously made replicas by Thomas Demand and Robert Gober and the elaborate cinematic scenarios of Gregory Crewdson.

While photography can make contrived scenarios look convincingly real, it can also make real scenes or landscapes appear strangely artificial. The saturated color and hallucinatory clarity of Julian Faulhaber’s pristine gas station and Frank Breuer’s sleek corporate façades have the paradoxical effect of making these real-world locales look uncannily like scale models. This play of truth and illusion becomes dazzlingly complex in photographs of places where fantasy meets reality, such as Shai Kremer’s panoramic study of a fake city used for military training. Within the last decade, the integration of photography and digital technology has pushed the medium’s trompe l’oeil illusionism to a new level. In the work of younger artists like Craig Kalpakjian, whose computer-generated images of corporate corridors have no real-world counterparts, the idea of photography as a true mirror of reality seems more illusory than ever.

Also included in the installation are photographs by Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Naoki Hanjo, Vik Muniz, Gabriel Orozco, Stephen Shore, Taryn Simon, Joel Sternfeld, Thomas Struth, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Bernard Voïta, and Mark Wyse. To provide context on the history of illusionism in photography, the contemporary works will be complemented by related photographs by James Wallace Black, James Nasmyth and James Carpenter, Edward Sheriff Curtis, and Ruth Orkin.

Reality Check is organized by Mia Fineman, Senior Research Associate in the Department of Photographs.

Laurie Lambrecht sent me this link this morning from the BBC.com; be sure to visit the website for the competition and learn about all the important components of this prize, the exhibition tour, the book and more.

Description: The digital age is giving documentary photographers extraordinary new ways to create and organize our photographic projects. This two day workshop will show how to use the new digital workflow to extend the ability of the visual storyteller. Ed Kashi will share examples of his personal projects and work with National Geographic and other major publications to illustrate the possibilities of photography as a source of passion, personal expression and communicative power. He will discuss how you develop an idea, get access to your subject, determine your objectives and present your work. The objective is to share the passions for photography and inject that spirit into the students. Digital photography is just a new tool and what is most important is to understand the traditions of photography, storytelling, narrative and intimacy so we can integrate these qualities into our work using the new tools at our disposal.

There will also be presentations and discussion on multimedia, how it fits into the convulsive landscape of media today and what and where the opportunities are for creativity and distribution of your work.

The students will view the instructor’s work, outlining the complete process of creating a project from beginning to end. Each student will be expected to bring a project, in any form, for class discussion on how to move their work forward.

“My work has been profoundly effected by the political and social issues of my time. I derive my passionate drive to commit significant time and energy to produce works that are in-depth and personal. My desire is to report on, capture and tell the stories that I believe will impact humanity in the short term and for decades to come.”

Instructor: Ed Kashi’s photographs have appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, Time, Fortune, Geo, Newsweek, MSNBC.COM, and many other domestic and international publications. The multimedia story “The Sandwich Generation” was 2007 POYi Best Multimedia Feature Story or Essay and was done in collaboration with Julie Winokur.

He has several monographs, films and multimedia projects on longterm subjects including the notable Aging in America project.

Most recently, Kashi’s innovative approach to photography and filmmaking produced the Iraqi / Kurdistan Flipbook, which premiered on MSNBC.com in December 2006. Using stills in a moving image format, this creative and thought-provoking form of visual storytelling has garnered an award from the 26th annual Black Maria Film and Video Festival (2007) and will be utilized in an upcoming series of exhibitions on the Iraq War being presented at The George Eastman House.

OH to be in NYC this week: It’s PRINT WEEK, sponsored by the International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA).
Check out all the offerings at this year’s in NYC

Most notable:

Another artists book fair: close on the heels of last week’s NY Art Book Fair is the Eleventh Annual E/AB Fair, “Editions / Artists Books” on view October 31 – November 2nd at The Tunnel, 263 Eleventh Avenue, between 27th and 28th Streets.

From the website: Founded in 1998 by Susan Inglett of I.C. Editions and Brooke Alexander Editions, the Fair has grown in size and stature to become the premier showcase for contemporary publishers and dealers presenting the latest in prints, multiples and artists’ books FREE to the public. Today, located in The Tunnel, the Fair fills an entire New York City block, running from 11th Avenue to the West Side Highway. The Tunnel generously accommodates sixty-three of the most exciting international exibitors and hundreds of artists representing New York, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, Amsterdam, London, Paris and points in between.
FREE to the Public: Friday – Sunday, 31 October-2 November 2008
Hours: 11 AM – 7 PM Friday & Saturday; 11 AM – 4 PM SundayRELATED EVENTSDuring the Fair visitors will be treated to three days of intimate conversations on art with some of today’s most exciting artists, collectors, and publishers. The symposia series will be held in our elegant lounge furnished by Kartell and is free and open to the public, courtesy of Art on Paper magazine. Special guest speakers include conversations with artists Richard Tuttle, James Siena, and Jill Magid. New this year, E|AB is proud to announce that Mickalene Thomas will be creating and printing a portrait of Michelle Obama with Brand X Projects Saturday night from 5 to 7. Widely known for her lush portraits of African American women, Thomas has shown at the Studio Museum in Harlem and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center. Proceeds from the sale of the print will benefit Books for Kids Foundation.

I find it very interesting to note the increasing presence of photography being represented by galleries at print fairs.

The IFPDA Print Fair is on view at The Park Avenue Armory through Sunday (between 66th and 67th Street.

From the website: Art fairs with a special focus on fine and original prints offer a wonderful opportunity to visit our member dealers and view American, European and Japanese prints from old master to modern and contemporary. In addition to participating in Print Fairs endorsed or sponsored by the IFPDA, many of our members regularly exhibit at prestigious international art fairs as well. Use the links below to find out more about fairs that may be taking place near you and for a list of the IFPDA dealers you will find at each fair. <!– –>

http://www.texasphoto.org/Newsletters/2008-04.html
Competitions – 23rd Annual Members’ Only Show – Deadline October 29 Keith Carter to jury Show
TPS’s 23rd Annual Members’ Only Show will open at the Dishman Art Museum at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas in mid-January, 2009. Keith Carter, Endowed Walles Chair of Art at Lamar University, is the juror.
$ 2,750 in cash awards.
Color catalog to all who enter.
Accepted entrants receive 3 cataloges.
You can email digital files.
Download Call for Entries in pdf format.
To pay your MOS entry fee using TPS secure website.
For more information about the MOS.

Aperture recently published the Project’s first publication, War Is Only Half The Story: The Aftermath Project which features the work of 2007 winners Jim Goldberg and Wolf Bowig. The 2009 grant program will provide two grants of $25,000 and $15,000 to photographers addressing the aftermath of conflict in their work.

A former staff correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and magazine freelance writer, Sara Terry made a mid-career transition into photojournalism and docmentary photography in the late 1990s. Her long-term project about the aftermath of war in Bosnia — “Aftermath: Bosnia’s Long Road to Peace” — was published in September 2005 by Channel Photographics. Her work has been widely exhibited, at such venues as the United Nations, the Museum of Photography in Antwerp, and the Moving Walls exhibition at the Open Society Institute. Her photographs are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and in many private collections. In 2005, she received a prestigious Alicia Patterson Fellowship for her work in Bosnia. Sara resides in Los Angeles and is currently working on projects in Southeast Asia and Turkey. She is represented by Polaris Images.